Syria

Afghanistan: US “Withdrawal” Prepares Hybrid War

/ redfireonline / Leave a comment

taliban flag

Above: The Taliban’s Islamic Emirate flag. It is white and emblazoned with an Islamic scripture known as the Shahada in black lettering. The Shahada is an Islamic Oath and is the first of the Five Pillars of Islam found in the Quran which reads “I bear witness that none deserves worship except God, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God”. It is considered a basic statement of Islamic faith. Image from http://www.neerthirai.com

26-09-2021: September 17 saw the US Commander of CENTCOM (Central Command) tell reporters at the Pentagon the August 29 drone strike which killed Afghani aid worker Zamarai Ahmadi and seven of his children – was an error.[1] The “over-the-horizon” (controlled remotely from another region or country) drone attack was allegedly carried out to target ISIS-K, who had claimed responsibility for the August 26 bombing of Kabul airport. This incident supposedly took the lives of 13 US soldiers and over 100 Afghans.[2] Suspiciously, eyewitness reports from the time claim that most of the Afghans that perished were not killed by the supposed suicide bomber, but in fact by US soldiers who started “panic” firing into the crowd directly after the blast.[3] As with so many world events today – especially the openly fraudulent coronavirus “pandemic” – the official narrative of the US “withdrawal” and the Taliban takeover is little more than smoke and mirrors to justify yet another war.

Stage managed chaos

While the US mainstream media was horrified at what appeared to be a chaotic withdrawal of some US troops from Afghanistan (leaving thousands of others, plus 18 000 mercenaries[4]), others have noticed that the sequence of events as it unfolded somewhat benefits the Pentagon and may well have been staged managed to do just that. An Afghanistan which once again descends into civil war after the US military machine “leaves” in fact builds political momentum for continued imperialist involvement in Afghanistan, at least in some form. If ISIS makes an appearance, and as if on cue, claims responsibility for an attack which supposedly took the lives of US troops – this obviously creates political conditions for more military operations against the world’s most notorious terrorists.

While on the surface paradoxical, criticism of the Biden Administration’s mishandling of the “withdrawal” can both praise the “ending” of the forever war AND create the conditions for demands for US imperialism to stay in, or return – to “fight ISIS”. How convenient! Liberals – the political base of the Democrats for both the fake “pandemic” and the effective coup[5] which installed Biden, can thus once again be rolled out to demand yet another regime change war. This time, the target is the very Taliban which they have freshly placed in power. This only appears contradictory if the official narrative of “withdrawal” and “defeat” of US imperialism in Afghanistan is taken at face value. It is plausible to speculate that the choreographed and stage-managed chaos was intended to create conditions of conflict, which, with the insertion of ISIS-K seemingly from out of nowhere – transforms the forever war into a hybrid war of destabilisation. Such a hybrid war – which may very well include conditions for yet another colour revolution – is evidently a win-win situation for the Pentagon and the CIA.[6] Surrounding Russia, China and Iran can then be better targeted by subversive terror sponsored by the West.

Taliban as cartoon villains

If the Western corporate media is to be believed, we are now expected to go along with the notion that the Taliban are the new miscreants that must be deposed. This is literally days after the US state gave over 85 billion dollars’ worth of high-tech military equipment to the Taliban. This included: 2000 armoured vehicles, 45 Blackhawk helicopters, 50 Scout Attack choppers, 29 Super Tocano Ground Attack aircraft and over 75 000 vans and Ford and Toyota pick-up trucks![7]  One wonders if the Toyota pick-up trucks are some of the same ones that the US and British governments basically admitted to supplying[8] to “moderate rebels” – who turned out to be ISIS – in Syria during their appalling proxy regime change war from 2011 onwards. Indeed, not only Toyotas, but ISIS themselves appear to have been transported from Syria directly to Afghanistan, by these same Western governments now claiming that the Taliban are the new bad guys. Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has repeatedly asserted that the US military has been using helicopters to whisk away ISIS fighters on the verge of defeat in Syria directly to Afghanistan, so they can be used as proxy fighters against Russia, China and Iran.[9] So the Libya-Syria rat line has now morphed into the Syria-Afghanistan rat line.

There is little doubt that the Taliban, generally speaking, do not represent political progress. Yet the difference between the 1996-2001 Taliban, and the Taliban of 2021, is in many respects like chalk and cheese. As much as their values might clash with Western political modernity, the Taliban 2.0 are certainly not the backward and violent stone-age misogynists which emerged out of the anti-Soviet Mujahideen (soldiers of God) supplied with CIA weaponry in the 1980s. The implication that they have not changed stirs liberals and the fake left to make yet more disingenuous appeals for Western states to “save” the women and children of Afghanistan. While genuine leftists cannot offer the Taliban political support, nor can they be dragged into yet another hybrid war which is ultimately not about Afghanistan – but Washington’s grand prize enemies in Moscow, Beijing and Tehran.

For example, accurate translations of the Taliban’s first major press conference reveal the Taliban as potentially mild reformers – as far as within the bounds of Sharia Law will allow. The new Taliban stated that women can be educated at all levels and can continue to work. Only the hijab (hair covering) will be required, NOT the burqa (whole body covering). The Islamic Emirate will not threaten anyone (meaning neighbouring countries) and revenge – formerly an essential pillar of the Pashtunwali code – will be abandoned. This has never previously occurred. The Taliban will form an “inclusive” government, with “inclusive” meaning that women and Shiites will not be excluded. Again, this is unprecedented. Freedom of speech, public criticism and debate will be allowed – albeit within the boundaries of “Islamic values”.[10]

In another game changer, the Taliban will ban the production of opium/heroin. So for all practical purposes, the CIA heroin rat line is dead in the water.[11] So the notion that the Taliban (derived from the word for “students”) will immediately prevent women from obtaining an education, will cover women in burqas, will enforce an obscure and medieval version of Sharia Law etc.- is entirely false. While it is true that the 33 member Taliban cabinet does not include any women, it does include one Uzbek and one Tajik in amongst the other Pashtuns. Yet Western liberals would do well to remember that Saudi Arabia and Qatar, joined at the hip to Washington, are headed by entirely male royal families. What’s more, there are indications that the Taliban are angling towards an “Islam with Afghan Characteristics”. One wall in Kabul was recently doused in white and painted with Kufic script which stated: “For an Islamic system with independence, you have to go through tests and stay patient”.[12] Overall, Western liberals who depict today’s Taliban as Disney-esque barbarians sporting long beards and wielding cutlasses are once again acting as foot soldiers for the very Empire they claim to oppose.

Afghanistan and the New Silk Road

What is more, the modern Taliban also displays an ability to recognise geopolitical realities, as well as the economic rise of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and corresponding economic malaise of the US Empire. It is in this sense that the US has arguably “lost” Afghanistan to Eurasia, given the PRC’s stupendous economic rise signified by the New Silk Road, or One Belt One Road (Belt and Road Initiative), and Russia’s rise to military prominence with its superior hardware. Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid reflected this economic and geopolitical awareness when he stated: “Chinese assistance will form the basis of Afghanistan development. One Belt, One Road will revive the ancient Silk Road. China will be our gateway to international markets”.[13] Such statements doubtless infuriate Washington and their political operatives – hence their motivation for the orchestrating of ISIS style terror AND mushrooming de facto calls for already upending Taliban rule.

Washington is also well aware of the estimated 3 trillion dollars’ worth of rare earth minerals in the soil of Afghanistan, which has never been extracted largely due to being enveloped in war for close to 40 years. Afghanistan’s deposits of lanthanum, lithium, cerium, praseodymium and gadolinium are known to be the largest in the world.[14] East and West are cognisant of the fact that it is only China which has the scientific, economic and engineering capacity to obtain these elements and manufacture them into the vital electronics, microchips and superconductors that underpin the performance of modern economies. In addition, only China, due to predominant public ownership and a planned economy at home, is able to offer the Taliban mutually beneficial terms for the joint utilization and development of these mineral elements which modern technology demands. Ironically, the “stone-age” Taliban – via the scientific advances of Red China – can provide the elements needed for the jet age.

Afghanistan under the new Taliban will also move closer to full membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which was established by China, Russia, Kygyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan in 2001. It is an economic and security bloc with a stated mission of promoting a multi-polar world, one which denies the USA as the single world power. It has since expanded amongst the nations of Eurasia, and now has a population base of 3 billion people and a combined GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of 8 trillion dollars.[15] Afghanistan currently has observer status, and Iran has recently become a full member, with President Ebrahim Raisi denouncing (US) “hegemony and unilateralism” at the welcome.[16] The inevitable “loss” of Afghanistan to the SCO will likely result in yet more US and UK government attempts to break this cooperation through “ISIS” terror.

Asylum for collaborators?

No sooner had the Taliban miraculously survived the so-called deadliest plague in world history without lockdowns, facemasks or vaccines (!), the lockdown fake left began issuing calls which equate to bellowing for imperialist backed regime change. Unfortunately, this should come as no surprise. It is a very small step from backing calls for “revolution” in Syria where the only “revolutionaries” are ISIS and their off-shoots, to backing calls for “revolution” in Afghanistan where the only “revolutionaries” are ISIS-K. Part and parcel of these demands are the pseudo indignant cries for asylum for tens of thousands of Afghan “refugees”. The Socialist Alliance issued a call for the Australian government to increase its humanitarian intake of refugees by 20 000, and to take in Afghans who had escaped to other countries.[17] Socialist Alternative sung the same tune.[18] The Australian Communist Party joined the fray.[19] The Communist Party of Australia (CPA) ramped up the jingoism to explicitly call for asylum for Afghans who worked with the Australian Defence Forces (ADF)![20]

Would this be the same Australian Army who were exposed as committing some of the worst war crimes in history in Afghanistan? The Brereton Report, conducted by the Inspector General of the ADF, found that Australian troops in Afghanistan had committed at least 39 unlawful killings[21] during their part in the occupation, and this is likely to be just the tip of the iceberg. Afghans who “worked with” the armed detachments of Australian imperialism obviously betrayed their own people in the most disgraceful manner possible. “Translators” enabled the Australian and US militaries to smash down the doors of innocent Afghans looking for Taliban who would be executed if found, assisted the torture of others at Bagram Air Base, and aided tens of thousands of trigger-happy mercenaries to gun down the blameless. These are imperialist collaborators with as much blood on their hands as the Anglo/US militaries themselves. The CPA and the lockdown fake left not only shill for Empire during the Covid class attack, they deepen this betrayal by colluding with the Empire in a military war. Genuine Marxists DO NOT call for asylum or refuge for misanthropic collaborators with imperialism.

The calls for the “non-recognition” of the Taliban government from the liberal left plays the same role. If a nation does not recognise the diplomatic staff of another nation, this is not just a symbolic manoeuvre – it is an act of war. And this is precisely what Wall Street has set up via the Pentagon and the White House: yet another hybrid war for regime change, now with ISIS-K as the “moderate rebels”. In contrast, workers the world over have a vital interest in a temporary military bloc with the non-imperialist powers (Russia, China) and their allies (Iran, Afghanistan) against Anglo/US imperialism. Politically, workers only salvation is forging of workers’ parties which fight for workers’ governments throughout Eurasia and internationally. As far away as it now appears, the expropriation of the major means of production and exchange in the name of society and held in trust by the working class, is key to the breakthrough which is required. Such momentous change can only be led by regionally linked Leninist vanguard parties upholding Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution. Tactically utilising temporary allies, the proletariat is more than capable of blazing a path towards socialism.

WORKERS  LEAGUE
www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

[1] https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/09/17/us-urged-end-drone-strikes-after-pentagon-says-killing-10-afghan-civilians-was (19.09.2021)

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/26/explosion-happened-outside-kabul-airport-pentagon-confirms (19.09.2021)

[3] https://southfront.org/us-forces-killed-afghan-civilians-in-panic-shooting-following-kabul-airport-suicide-attack-video (19.09.2021)

[4] https://anti-empire.com/over-18000-pentagon-contractors-remain-in-afghanistan (19.09.2021)

[5] https://redfireonline.com/2020/10/27/us-elections-left-wing-or-right-wing-coup/ (19.09.2021)

[6] https://countercurrents.org/2021/07/a-hybrid-war-to-replace-afghan-forever-war (19.09.2021)

[7] https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/08/worse-thought-complete-list-armaments-us-leaving-taliban-islamist-groups-enough-fortify-years-secret-warehouse-us-equipment-captured (19.09.2021)

[8] https://newspunch.com/isis-and-toyota-truck-mystery-solved (19.09.2021)

[9] https://asiatimes.com/2021/08/enduring-terror-forever-from-al-qaeda-to-isis-k (19.09.2021)

[10] https://www.sott.net/article/457113-Pepe-Escobar-How-Russia-China-are-stage-managing-the-Taliban (19.09.2021)

[11] https://sputniknews.com/20170825/afghanistan-cia-heroin-ratline-1056794770.html (19.09.2021)

[12] https://asiatimes.com/2021/09/what-to-expect-from-taliban-2-0 (19.09.2021)

[13] https://survivalmagazine.org/news/china-represents-our-passport-towards-the-markets-of-the-whole-world-taliban-recognize-communist-china-as-their-closest-ally (19.09.2021)

[14] https://thecradle.co/Article/Analysis/1912 (19.09.2021)

[15] https://rafand.org/shanghai-cooperation-organisations-approach-to-afghanistan (19.09.2021)

[16] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/17/iran-denounces-unilateralism-as-it-becomes-full-sco-member (19.09.2021)

[17] https://socialist-alliance.org/news/make-afghanistan-war-end-all-imperialist-invasions (19.09.2021)

[18] https://redflag.org.au/article/us-occupation-afghanistan-over-disaster-goes (19.09.2021)

[19] https://www.auscp.org.au/militant-monthly/2021/8/16/afghanistan-a-new-chapter-in-the-tragedy-commences?rq=afghanistan (19.09.2021)

[20] https://cpa.org.au/guardian/issue-1976/20-years-of-occupation-of-afghanistan-crass-imperialism-and-a-humanitarian-disaster (19.09.2021)

[21] https://thediplomat.com/2021/04/australia-avoids-reckoning-with-afghanistan-war-crimes-allegations (19.09.2021)

Afghanistan: US Empire Shadow Boxing with ISIS-K

/ redfireonline / Leave a comment

ISIS-K

Above: A photo from a video supposedly released by ISIS-K to demonstrate their power. http://www.sofrep.com

01-09-2021: So the corporate media narrative on Afghanistan now runs something like this: 20 years after invading, US forces were kicked out of the country by the Taliban and bungled a hasty withdrawal from the country. Afghans who worked with the US during their occupation scrambled to airports, some of whom were dragged along by a cargo plane as it tried to take off, reminiscent of scenes of the Americans fleeing Saigon in 1975. The Biden Administration is abandoning Americans who worked with the military to their own devices, in the face of the advancing Taliban forces. The US backed Afghan government collapsed without a fight, which allowed the Taliban to re-take much of the country without firing a shot. Some Western governments offer the immediate assistance of accepting tens of thousands of refugees from Afghanistan. From out of nowhere, an ISIS split off (ISIS-K) re-emerges to again target remaining US forces as well as the incoming Taliban.   

A Clayton’s withdrawal

Does this tale bear any resemblance to reality? Fat chance. Like the Empire’s “Covid is the deadliest plague in world history” bunkum, the Afghanistan “withdrawal” so willfully distorts truth only sections of it align with facts on the ground. This was a Clayton’s withdrawal – the withdrawal you have when you are not having a withdrawal. It is a “withdrawal” in the same way in which the US “withdrew” from Iraq and Syria, i.e., leaving enough residual forces to occupy parts of the country to “fight ISIS” – and thereby still largely destabilising entire regions. The US did not “withdraw” and the Taliban did not “win” in the real meaning of those terms.[1] As Kit Knightly points out, the iconic video image of the US Air Force C-17 Globemaster heavy transport plane rolling out of an air strip poses more questions than it answers. Where are the women and children trying to escape? Why are some men jogging alongside and smiling and waving to cameras?[2] Is the US deliberately trying to re-create the scenes of the emergency helicopter evacuation from the US Embassy in Saigon in 1975?

Arguably, the US is not ending the war on Afghanistan, but privatising it. Up to 18 000 mercenaries will remain, alongside thousands of Special Forces operatives, Pentagon contractors and CIA personnel.[3] Moreover, the Biden Administration is only completing a deal signed between the Trump Administration and the Taliban over 12 months ago,[4] but somewhat modifying it to its advantage. Despite Trump’s other politics, one of the central platforms of his run to the presidency in 2016 was to end the forever regime change wars in the Middle East. The Democrats, as perhaps more loyal servants of imperialism, were aghast at the prospect of no more US “interventions”. To retain the veneer of liberalism though, they procured a feigned withdrawal from Afghanistan which was in reality a mere change of tactics in their geopolitical war against Eurasian integration. The US war on Afghanistan from 2001 was never about 9/11 or the Taliban, but more about establishing a beach head from which to harass, pressure and threaten neighbouring Russia, China and Iran.

Taliban 2.0

From fighting “against” the Taliban, the US has switched to working with the Taliban, or at least the new version of the Taliban. The Taliban have repeatedly stated that they have changed and want to live in peace with other Afghans and other nations. While it is true that the Taliban 2.0 [5] are a different force to that which ruled Afghanistan in the late 90s, they appear to still intend to practice a version of Sharia Law, though with some modifications. Politically, they appear willing to cut deals with US imperialism in return for their control over most parts of the country. This may better suit them and the interests of US imperialism, in that the Taliban returns to government – while the US can still use pockets of the country out of reach of the Taliban to launch terrorist attacks against China, Iran and even Pakistan. As the New Atlas reports, the US never had the intention of setting up an independent or stable government in Afghanistan. If such a government was established, it would have little choice but to sign up for desperately needed infrastructure development through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) provided by the People’s Republic of China (PRC).[6]

The revised Taliban appear to have kept their word that they would not target or kill other Afghani ethnic minorities which they have previously targeted, e.g., Hazaras, Tajiks and Uzbeks. They seem to have given this same assurance to the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, it could be the case that chaos and a new civil war was exactly the intention of the US government in conducting their contrived chaotic draw down. The neighbouring PRC is vastly more powerful than it was 20 years ago when the US invaded. Similarly, the neighbouring Islamic Republic of Iran is also more capable of defending its interests than it was 20 years ago, despite crippling US sanctions. More destabilising violence and civil conflict is always going to benefit Washington, which seeks to derail the BRI and other countries in the region which are partners to the BRI – such as Iran and Pakistan.

Western governments for “refugee rights” ?

Over the last decade, imperialism itself has learnt how to use and manipulate the genuine concern that progressive minded folk feel for refugees and asylum seekers. Refugee rights activists correctly point out that many flee from Third World countries due to the West’s ongoing wars, or simply to seek better economic conditions for themselves and their families. Generally, workers have supported many protest movements calling for humane treatment of those seeking a safer place to live. However, Western governments have no qualms in exploiting real human empathy for those in less fortunate circumstances, if it can be used to further the aims of imperialist war, regime change or just plain terror. As they did in the case of Syria,[7] imperialism aims to enlist liberal refugee rights activists to fuel their destabilisation of Eurasia. As if on cue, Western governments immediately offered to take in tens of thousands of refugees from Afghanistan. The US offered to take 10 000, the United Kingdom (UK) 20 000, Canada 20 000 and Germany 10 000.[8] The Australian government, notorious for its inhumane treatment of refugees, offered to take 3000 [9], albeit with no overall increase in current caps.

It is preposterous to suggest that these governments were genuinely concerned about the welfare of Afghans who may otherwise have faced beatings or execution by the Taliban. This was done to once again mobilise liberal political sentiment behind the Empire, in the similar way in which liberalism was and is being used to impose lockdown fascism in the West under the guise of a “pandemic”.[10] Look how progressive we are, taking in thousands of refugees fleeing the rule of backward armed tribesmen! The pretence is so phoney that only the lockdown fake left could genuinely fall for it – and there were examples. The Socialist Alliance breathlessly urged the Australian Federal Government to increase its Afghan refugee intake,[11] while Solidarity called on the Morrison Government to evacuate the families of Afghan refugees already detained in Australia.[12] As with their betrayal over “Covid” lockdowns, the lockdown left alibies imperialism by issuing plaintive demands for a more humane application of the Empire’s drive to war against the Eurasia and the Middle East.

ISIS-K: the Delta Variant?

As if it was choreographed, there was a terrorist attack on Kabul airport on August 26, which apparently took the lives of 13 Americans.[13] Immediately, a group calling itself ISIS-K claimed responsibility. Supposedly a split-off from ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), the “K” stands for Khorasan province, which includes parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. All of a sudden, reports hit the news that ISIS-K is “more brutal than the Taliban”, views the Taliban as sell-outs for signing deals with the US government, and has aims of establishing an Islamic caliphate across the Middle East and Asia.[14] This narrative would be humourous if it wasn’t so tragic. After being effectively defeated in Syria, it beggars belief that Washington would again try to rekindle the ISIS fairytale in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with an ISIS variant that rings ominously of the fake danger they are pumping out about a “Delta” variant of the putative SARS-CoV-2 virus. Yet as working people have discovered since the onset of lockdown hysteria, truth is very often stranger than fiction.

Throughout a ten-year war of regime change, US and EU imperialism and their allies including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey effectively armed, trained, funded and equipped “ISIS” in order to overthrow the Syrian Arab Republic. As exposed by famed investigative journalist Seymour Hersh[15] and others, the US government effectively created ISIS and sent it into Syria to collapse the state. ISIS, Al Qaeda and numerous jihadists were given licence to commit the most egregious atrocities against civilians, in arguably the worst proxy war in history. The US Congress itself authorised $500 million of tax-payers money in 2014 to train and arm 5000[16] barbaric yahoos in pursuit of this diabolical act.

History now shows that this elaborate and deadly ruse was brought to an end by a combination of resistance from the governments of Syria, Russia and Iran, assisted by Hezbollah. This was a real defeat of US imperialism, perhaps the first one in war since Vietnam in 1975. Arguably it was this defeat which laid the groundwork for the onset of lockdown fascism in 2020. The US Empire and its allies could no longer tolerate being blocked in its drive for corporate capitalist planetary plunder by sections of the non-imperialist bloc. While the PRC did not play an active military role, the combination of being eclipsed by China’s economic power and Russia’s military power (demonstrated by the superior air power of its SU-35 jet fighters backing the resistance) sent the US Empire into a frenzy. Inflicting Covidian terror on its working class at home was one reflex, and now the deliberate re-lighting of the bonfire of ISIS style “Islamic” terrorism across Eurasia is another.

War on Terror redux

We could be once again subjected to a rehash of the war on terror, which the war on Covid only temporarily kept at bay. In response to the Kabul airport bombings, the Pentagon said the threat of ISIS-K is “very real”, and that it had been sharing intelligence on ISIS-K with the Taliban since August the 14th.[17] The line that ISIS-K believe the Taliban are too “liberal”[18] is spun to imply that the Taliban are now the new “moderate rebels” which makes it fine for the West to now collaborate with them. Give us a break. ISIS-K, may in fact contain US or EU special forces themselves, as British SAS troops were exposed as being disguised as ISIS and fighting with them against the Syrian government in 2015.[19] ISIS is entirely a creation of imperialism, which provides funding, weapons, training and equipment. In the same way in which imperialism fought “against” ISIS in Iraq and Syria, Washington and London will now fight “against” ISIS-K in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s mere shadow boxing, but with the same ultimate aim – to bring down Russia, China and Iran at any cost.

So while we will be treated to another round of “here come the terrorists – again”,[20] the terror bogey could be ISIS-K, or it could also be the “domestic terrorists” who suspected some electoral fraud in the US Presidential Election of 2020,[21] or it could be those who suspect another political agenda behind the Covid vaccine rollout,[22] or think something is fishy about being tracked, traced and forbidden from travelling outside their country, state, or neighbourhood. It all just rolls into one really. If the West’s Big Lie Propaganda Machine can convince people that the Delta variant of a doubtful coronavirus is bringing civilisation to its knees, they can be convinced that the ISIS-K variant aims to set up an Islamic state to threaten freedom and democracy worldwide. Its sheer fantasy, but in no way is it any more outlandish than their claims that healthy people breathing out is hazardous to others.

The stakes are high. As the history of the 20th century shows, fascism and war often go hand in hand. Today, a pseudo-medical fascism is well underway, and the nonsensical Covid restrictions imposed on workers worldwide could easily be rolled out to stymie resistance to yet another war against “terrorism” which is funded and armed by the very governments raising the false alarm. Marxists may well be faced with the task of simultaneously building the anti-lockdown movement as well as mobilising workers against yet another imperialist war “against” ISIS, read: against the non-imperialist bloc. The only way to penetrate the fog of war is with clear political leadership of the working class. Given the base betrayal of the lockdown fake left, what is critically urgent is the formation of a vanguard party staunchly defending the central pillars of Leninist-Trotskyism. Linked internationally, such a party would help mobilise workers against war and fascism through the direct establishment of their own organs of state power. The choice would then be clear: capitalism with its lockdowns and wars, or socialism which is determined to wipe fascism and terror from the pages of history.

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com


[1] 6 Questions we NEED to ask about Afghanistan – OffGuardian (off-guardian.org) (29.08.2021)

[2] https://twitter.com/kit_knightly/status/1427393502703464449 (29.08.2021)

[3] https://thegrayzone.com/2021/04/16/biden-afghanistan-war-privatizing-contractors/ (29.08.2021)

[4] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sign-historic-deal-taliban-beginning-end-us/story?id=69287465 (29.08.2021)

[5] https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/2170159/taliban-2-0-regional-global-impacts  (29.08.2021)

[6] The US Never Intended to Create a Self-Reliant Afghan Government | New Atlas Report (29.08.2021)

[7] https://redfireonline.com/2016/11/16/shut-down-nauru-for-an-anti-empire-refugee-rights-movement/ (29.08.2021)

[8] FAQ: Which Countries Are Opening Doors to Afghan Refugees? And Which Aren’t? (thequint.com)  (29.08.2021)

[9] How many Afghan refugees is Australia taking? Are we going to expand our refugee intake? – ABC News (29.08.2021)

[10] https://redfireonline.com/2021/08/17/lockdowns-and-the-twilight-of-democracy/ (29.08.2021)

[11] Morrison has an obligation to increase Afghan refugee intake | Green Left (29.08.2021)

[12] US humiliated in Afghanistan as Taliban seizes Kabul – Solidarity Online (29.08.2021)

[13] Two explosions at Kabul airport in ‘terrorist attack’; dozens killed – CNA (channelnewsasia.com) (29.08.2021)

[14] What is ISIS-K, the group that claimed responsibility for the Kabul attack? – CBS News (29.08.2021)

[15] (Seymour M. Hersh \267 The Red Line and the Rat Line \267 LRB 6 April 2014) (thelizlibrary.org) (29.08.2021)

[16] Syria Daily, Sept 19: Congress Approves $500 Million to Train & Arm 5,000 Insurgents – EA WorldView (29.08.2021)

[17] Biden Addresses Deadly Terror Attacks At Kabul Airport: ‘We Will Hunt You Down’ | HuffPost (29.08.2021)

[18] ISIS-K: Taliban Victory Giving Rise To A Deadlier Enemy (freedomwire.com) (29.08.2021)

[19] British SAS Special Forces “Dressed Up as ISIS Rebels” Fighting Assad in Syria – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization (29.08.2021)

[20] Here Come the Terrorists. Again — Strategic Culture (strategic-culture.org) (29.08.2021)

[21] The FBI says the Capitol riot was ‘terrorism.’ Democrats (and Republicans) should, too. (msnbc.com) (29.08.2021)

[22] https://www.sapiens.org/culture/covid-19-vaccine-protestors/ (29.08.2021)

Nigeria: Buhari Blocks Big Tech’s State Subversion

/ redfireonline / Leave a comment

buhari

President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari.  Image from http://www.sunnewsonline.com

22-06-2021: In early June, President Muhammadu Buhari announced the indefinite suspension of Big Tech titan Twitter for its operations in Nigeria.[1] This was triggered by Twitter deleting some of President Buhari’s tweets in relation to the destabilisation of “protests” where dozens of buildings were set ablaze, ostensibly to highlight the accountability of police actions. Buhari had obliquely referred to the violence that engulfed the country during the Nigerian Civil War, when Biafra launched a separatist struggle, and warned involved youth of what they were getting themselves into. Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, commented that the role of Twitter in Nigeria is very suspicious. He questioned why Twitter did not delete tweets of Biafran separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu but deleted the tweets of President Buhari. He highlighted the gross hypocrisy of Twitter in fuelling the #EndSARS protests in Nigeria in 2020, where “protestors” were burning police stations and killing police officers, and implying it was about the “right to protest”. Twitter loudly proclaims its support of the right to free speech in other countries, but itself terminated the Twitter account of former US President Donald Trump at home,[2] which played a huge role in his defenestration.

US govt stumps for “free speech”

Apparently unaware of the dripping hypocrisy, the US government immediately demanded Nigeria reverse its ban on Twitter. Samantha Power, who as former US Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) assiduously urged the world to wage regime change war against Syria,[3] pressed Nigeria to reinstate Twitter. Now as a director of the US Agency for International Development, Power claimed that Nigeria’s suspension of Twitter was “state-sanctioned denial of free speech”. Donald Trump, for his part, commended Nigeria for its actions and encouraged other nations to also ban Twitter and Facebook for NOT allowing free speech.[4] It appears ironic, but ever since his election in 2016, Donald Trump has largely steered a course to the left of what might be termed hyper-liberal imperialism. Big Tech is a central pillar of the liberal wing of imperialism, which engages in regime change operations overseas as a matter of course. In 2020 however, regime change came home to Washington.[5]

Needless to say, the US Empire cares not one whit about free speech anywhere on the planet. “Democracy”, “Free Speech” and “Human Rights” are simply rhetorical shrouds which dress up all facets of the imperialist proxy wars and covert subversion it practices all around the globe. The US Empire is backed in this mission by its allies in the leading governments of the European Union (EU), and its lackeys in Australia, Canada, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others. Imperialism is driven into regime change frenzy due to the utter inability of finance capital to expand at home, which also results in open attacks on the working class – currently through the madness of a patently false “pandemic”.

Attempted recolonisation of Africa

With its population topping 211 million,[6] Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation, and is thus the chief target for Washington’s multiple sided proxy wars of regime change throughout the continent. In effect, it is an attempted recolonisation of Africa by Wall Street, in an effort to block mutual co-operation between Abuja (the Nigerian capital) and the non-imperialist powers of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Washington reacts with fury to any nation in Africa, Asia or Latin America which takes the rather obvious option of signing military and security pacts with Russia, and economic and infrastructure agreements with the PRC. The US ruling class, with its EU allies, will resort to any method – up to and including the fomenting of fratricidal chaos and regime change war – to prevent Africans from looking even half favourably towards Russia and China. Twitter was patently fostering murderous destablisation within Nigeria, and thus it was entirely within Nigeria’s sovereign right to prevent its operation within the country.

In fact, one could argue that some of the nations that have also banned Twitter – the PRC, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or “North Korea”) and the Islamic Republic of Iran[7] – have NOT been overthrown precisely because Twitter and other imperialist Big Tech platforms have been disallowed. As some businesses within Nigeria operated on the basis of Twitter, Nigeria is reportedly losing $250 600 for every hour of the ban.[8] Yet this is a small price to pay for Nigeria to retain its independence and to curtail the internal devastation and destruction which could be  unleashed on Nigeria by all agents of Western finance capital – including US based Big Tech liberalism.

With capitalism globally in a state of utter decline, Nigeria and other African nations have no choice but to co-operate with the PRC, if they are to have any chance of reaching even modest development. The PRC’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI or “New Silk Road”) offers critical opportunities for economy boosting infrastructure building which is sorely needed in Africa. Nigeria signed on to the BRI in 2018,[9] and has benefitted handsomely in terms of new railways and airports. Popular BRI projects completed in Nigeria include a standard gauge railway from the capital Abuja to the trade centre and transportation hub of Kaduna in Northwest Nigeria, and a standard gauge railway line from Nigeria’s economic capital of Lagos to Ibadan in the Southwest. PRC based firms have constructed new international airport terminals in Abuja, Port Harcourt (in the oil rich Niger delta) and the ancient city of Kano.[10] Undeniably, this infrastructure will stimulate much needed economic activity.

This mutually beneficial Nigerian/PRC friendly co-operation will only continue in coming years. The PRC, despite being a bureaucratically deformed workers state, operates on a planned economy, complete with 5-year plans. PRC officials have emphasised that Nigeria will be one of the beneficiaries to the PRC’s 14th Five Year Plan, to be implemented from 2021 to 2025. China’s Consul General in Lagos, Chu Maoming, stressed that “China’s new journey to fully build a modern socialist country is also a new journey for countries around the globe to enjoy win-win results and common prosperity….China will forge greater synergy of the BRI with African countries national development strategies…”[11]  Hearing this, one can only imagine the tearing out of hair amongst the corridors of power in the US White House and the Pentagon. China is clearly offering Nigeria an economic pathway out of underdevelopment, which will vastly boost the image of China internationally.

Boko Haram/ISWAP terror

With Nigeria beset by the terrorism of Boko Haram, security remains an all-important issue. Russia’s superior military power offers the only possible option for an African nation being plundered by what is most likely an imperialist backed genocide headed by Boko Haram and now the split off, Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP). At the very least, it is plausible that some of the fighters that make up Boko Haram and ISWAP simply marched across the Sahel region from NATO’s destruction of Green Libya in 2011, taking their weapons with them. NATO then sends in troops to fight “against” Boko Haram/ISWAP – a clearly self-serving agenda.[12] In the same way, the US government claimed to be fighting “against” ISIS during its failed regime change war against the Syrian Arab Republic.

In October 2019, President Buhari travelled to the Black Sea resort of Sochi to sign multiple agreements on military and economic co-operation. Buhari and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on further co-operation between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and Russian oil company Lukoil, plus Russian gas company Gazprom, for the development of Nigeria’s considerable oil and gas reserves. Russia would also help Nigeria develop a zero-carbon nuclear power plant and move to forgive 20 billion dollars’ worth of African debt.[13] Needless to say, neither the US state nor US oil and gas companies can offer anything in the ballpark of these deals.

Also in October 2019, the Buhari administration moved to cement military co-operation and security ties with Russia. This was an urgent necessity given the murderous campaigns of Boko Haram and ISWAP across Nigeria. Deals signed at that time included the Nigerian purchase of Russian Mi-35 attack helicopters, planes, tanks and other military equipment. It would also include the training of the Nigerian military in the use of this equipment. At the time, Nigerian envoy Steve Ugbah stated, “We’re sure that with Russian help we’ll manage to crush Boko Haram, given Russia’s experience in combating Islamic State in Syria”.[14] Arguably, the defeat of US imperialism in Syria by a combination of the armed forces of Syria, Iran, Russia and Hezbollah was their first defeat since the liberation of Saigon in 1975. Russia’s far superior air power – especially the SU-35 jet fighters – was critical in this victory.

With Nigeria openly hailing Russia’s success in defeating ISIS, it is little surprise the NATO powers grind their teeth at the prospect of African countries seeking Russian assistance. Yet the situation is so critical Nigeria has little option. The violent and life-threatening marauding of Boko Haram and ISWAP has caused the displacement of 2.2 million people fleeing the mayhem.[15] The origins of Boko Haram and its deployment across the African Sahel are extremely suspicious. Former Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir claimed that the US and Israel, in the form of the CIA and Mossad, are behind Boko Haram and ISIS attacks in Africa[16], as “no Muslim would carry out such acts”. One thing is clear: just as ISIS and Al Qaeda could not carry out extreme mercenary violence across whole countries without the backing of large imperial states, Boko Haram and ISWAP cannot just be a rag-tag bunch of self-funded zealots committed to an obtuse strand of Islam. Their heavy weapons come from somewhere.

Soros/NED funded internal subversion

Washington does not just use the military option to destabilise Nigeria – it also uses externally funded internal political subversion. As in many other countries around the world, the deadly duo of the Open Society Foundation (OSF) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) run rampant through Africa’s largest nation. Liberal anti-socialist hedge fund billionaire George Soros and his OSF death-star like empire are behind Nigerian media fronts such as Brekete Family Radio,[17] while the NED brags about its Nigerian partners resisting “government repression” and popularising “democratic values”.[18] The very suggestion that George Soros and the NED are even remotely concerned about democracy in Nigeria (or anywhere else) should provoke peals of laughter throughout the globe. The OSF and the NED are but two arms of the imperialist octopus desperately trying to block the sovereign actions of Nigeria which are taken to protect itself from yet more colonisation.

Just as the rioting and burning carried out by Black Lives Matter (BLM) in the US in 2020 was not about fighting racism, the rioting and burning of the #EndSARS and anti-Buhari “protestors” in Nigeria is not about “police brutality”. Rather, they are false rhetorical covers for an African proxy war waged by Washington against Beijing and Moscow.[19] It is little wonder that the tactic of using violence such as burning buildings under the guise of protesting police brutality was replicated from the streets of the USA to the streets of Nigeria, as both BLM[20] and today’s anti-Buhari protestors[21] are financially backed by the OSF. Even the demand for “good governance” in Nigeria is cut and pasted from the very mission of the Open Society Initiative for West Africa.[22] In short, the “pro-democracy” protests in Nigeria are not at all about what they claim themselves to be.

Twitter, the NED, the CIA, BLM, OSF, #EndSARS, #BuhariMustGo, Boko Haram, ISWAP – all of them play a role in the current push for regime change in Nigeria. To that extent, all are component parts of the US Empire itself. The key task for workers internationally is to defend Nigeria against all wings of the imperialist assault. Nigeria’s sovereign right to protect and/or develop itself via mutually beneficial partnerships with Russia and China must be upheld. Ultimately, what is required is the painstaking assembly of Marxist vanguard parties based on Permanent Revolution which can lead workers of the region towards a Socialist Federation of West Africa.

WORKERS  LEAGUE
E: workersleague@redfireonline.com
http://www.redfireonline.com

[1] https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2021/06/04/nigeria-Nigeria-President-Muhammadu-Buhari-Twitter/4941622845081/ (16-06-2021)

[2] https://pmnewsnigeria.com/2021/06/04/buhari-govt-suspends-twitter-in-nigeria-via-twitter/ (16-06-2021)

[3] https://www.undispatch.com/samantha-power-makes-the-case-for-war/ (16-06-2021)

[4] http://saharareporters.com/2021/06/09/us-counters-trump-asks-buhari-reverse-twitter-ban (16-06-2021)

[5] https://redfireonline.com/2021/01/16/when-exactly-was-the-fascist-coup/ (16-06-2021)

[6] https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/nigeria-population/ (19-06-2021)

[7] https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/06/05/nigeria-has-banned-twitter—along-with-these-other-countries/?sh=7651a44f1d96 (19-06-2021)

[8] Twitter ban: Nigeria loses N24.72bn in 10 days (withinnigeria.com) (19-06-2021)

[9] Nigeria and China’s belt and road initiative – The Sun Nigeria (sunnewsonline.com) (19-06-2021)

[10] Belt and Road Initiative projects ramp up Nigeria’s favourable perception of China · Global Voices (19-06-2021)

[11] How China’s new development plan will benefit Nigeria, other African countries, by Envoy ` | The Guardian Nigeria News – Nigeria and World News — Nigeria — The Guardian Nigeria News – Nigeria and World News (19-06-2021)

[12] NATO and the Irony of Its “Everyday Fight Against Terrorism” – Global Research – Centre for Research on Globalization (19-06-2021)

[13] Nigeria Signs Military Cooperation Pact with Russia (breitbart.com) (19-06-2021)

[14] Nigeria looks to sign military cooperation deal with Russia this month | Reuters (19-06-2021)

[15] http://www.fao.org/3/cb4586en/cb4586en.pdf (19-06-2021)

[16] https://www.globalresearch.ca/intelligence-operation-in-support-of-terrorism-the-u-s-and-israel-are-behind-both-boko-haram-and-isis-president-of-sudan/5436385 (19-06-2021)

[17] A People’s Court, Live and On the Air in Nigeria – Open Society Foundations (20-06-2021)

[18] Africa – NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (ned.org) (20-06-2021)

[19] Nigeria: Black Lives Matter Aids US Meddling in Africa | Red Fire (redfireonline.com) (20-06-2021)

[20] https://forbiddenknowledgetv.net/who-is-funding-black-lives-matter-and-why-the-answer-may-shock-you/ (20-06-2021)

[21] What We Do – OSIWA (20-06-2021)

[22] Mission and Vision – OSIWA (20-06-2021)

Palestine: Zionist State Massacre in Gaza

/ redfireonline / Leave a comment

gaza bombing

http://www.yalibnan.com

30-05-2021: The death toll from the latest round of Israeli state bombardment of Gaza stands at 213, including 61 children and 36 women, while 23 Palestinians have been slain in the West Bank.[1] The aftermath of the blitzkrieg by the Zionist Israeli state will be as difficult to deal with for the Palestinians as the unconscionable loss of life. The 11-day assault, which temporarily ended with a ceasefire on May 22, resulted in 800 000 in Gaza lacking access to clean water due to 50% of the water infrastructure being damaged by guided missiles. The United Nations’ (UN) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that nearly 17 000 residential or commercial units were damaged or destroyed by air strikes, with 769 of them rendered uninhabitable. Schools in Gaza were closed, affecting 600 000 children.[2]

The conflict was partially sparked by Israeli police being sent to arrest protestors in the Al Aqsa Mosque, who they claimed were throwing stones. In response, Hamas – the militant Islamist party which rules Gaza – requested the removal of police. When this did not materialise, Hamas began launching rockets on Israeli targets. It is claimed that Hamas launched 3300 rockets towards Israeli cities and towns, which took the lives of 10 people.[3] Another trigger for the conflict were the forced expulsions by Israeli settlers in the East Jerusalem area of Sheikh Jarrah, with the tacit approval of the Israeli authorities. Since 2020, eviction notices have been served to 13 Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood. These evictions are based on a 1970 law which exclusively allows Jewish Israelis to take back land they claim to have lost before the state of Israel was established in 1948.[4] The fact that the Palestinian families have lived there ever since is virtually dismissed.

One sided war

The Israeli state attacks on Palestinians is the worst since the war of 2014, but this time there are additional factors – such as Israeli settler pogroms. In some of the towns of ’48 Palestine, such as Lydd (Lod), armed Israeli settlers have been patrolling the streets with the protection of the police, looking for Palestinians to harass or harm.[5] There were scenes of these mobs shooting at Palestinian homes and vandalising and destroying property, including Mosques. In Bat Yam, Israeli mobs lynched a Palestinian man, who was lucky to escape with his life.[6] In one incident in Haifa, an Arab driver found himself in the midst of a mob chanting “Death to Arabs”. As he tried to flee, he struck one of the rioters. He was later detained by police.[7] Even though Israeli President Netanyahu denounced the Israeli rioters, there appears to be efforts to use the Zionist mobs as auxiliary forces to the military assault.

Regardless of the launching of some crude rockets by Hamas, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is not one of “two sides”, but rather a one-sided war against an essentially defenceless population. The Zionist state of Israel has the backing of the entirety of US imperialism, with the assistance of the European Union (EU) and other Western allies. The US government supplies Israel with $3.8 billion in “aid” each year, and in 2019 all but 0.2% of this money went to the Israeli military.[8] Without this material financial/military backing, the Zionist state of Israel effectively ceases to exist, as it would be overrun the Arab masses. Palestine, on the other hand, has no military to speak of, and does not have its own state. In this unjust and one-sided war, elementary justice is on the Palestinian side, and workers the world over should stand with them against US/EU imperialism.

At the same time, there is much to be desired politically from the Palestinian resistance. Hamas’ mixture of Islam and nationalism offers no political solution, and no way forward. Firing rockets in response to the assault of the Israeli state may win it sympathy amongst suffering Palestinians, but these salvos also give the Israeli state political ammunition for their murderous acts. The conservative Fatah and the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas cancelled Palestinian elections in late April, probably concerned that Hamas may perform strongly. Hamas labelled the indefinite postponement a “coup”,[9] which is not far from the truth. The bitter rivalry between Hamas and Fatah obscures the fact that both parties ultimately base themselves on Palestinian nationalism, which creates a barrier to Israeli and Palestinian working-class co-operation before a match has been struck.

Covid allies?

In addition, the vast majority of the Palestinian solidarity movement, especially that in the West, is mired in multiple and cascading levels of hypocrisy which beggar belief. One could well ask whether they are in fact as “pro-Palestine” and “anti-Israel” as they claim to be. For example, many of the Palestine solidarity organisations and self-proclaimed left parties who lead “Free Palestine” demonstrations do not question the risible claim that the world is enduring a “pandemic”. The very existence of SARS-CoV-2 is scientifically disputed,[10] let alone “Covid-19”. It is more likely a cover for capitalism devolving into a cruel fascism, throwing millions of workers into unemployment, and driving down living standards alongside the elimination of basic civil rights. Many left parties became known as the “lockdown left”[11] for ably assisting the state crushing innocent and healthy workers via lockdowns, facemasks and experimental vaccines. Their forceful backing of authority they otherwise claim to oppose was stark – but no more so in the case of the Israeli state. The Israeli state was arguably the most aggressive in enforcing lockdowns, as well as attempting to all but mandate the dangerous Covid “vaccine”. They enforced a Covid Green Pass which is so absolute it nearly prevents unvaccinated Israelis from being able to participate in society.[12] So if the Zionist Israeli state is over the top with Covid, according to “progressive” Palestine solidarity activists – why is it not an ally?

Axis of Resistance and Palestine

Pro-Palestine and “left” Covid practitioners ignore this obvious contradiction, which only adds another layer to their stunning sanctimony in opposing the “Axis of Resistance” (Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and others) during the imperialist war on Syria from 2011 onwards. Palestinians themselves and much of its international solidarity movement was split during the dirty war waged by the US Empire for regime change in Syria. Some Palestinians and their backers inexplicably backed the proxy war on Syria, while some Palestinian militia based in the Yarmouk refugee camp actively fought on the side of the Syrian Arab Republic,[13] Iran, Hezbollah and others against the US/EU led assault. The Islamic Republic of Iran covertly supplies Hamas with weapons and funding to resist the offensive of the Zionist Israeli state, for which Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh offered public thanks.[14] Yet many pro-Palestine solidarity organisations and left parties effectively bloc with the US Empire with their dangerous regime change provocations towards Iran.

What is more, the Zionist Israeli state has bombed Syria more than 400 times[15] since 2011, without a peep of protest from almost all of those now raising their voice against the latest Israeli bombing of Gaza. The real agenda of some Palestinian solidarity stands exposed when they vociferously oppose the Israeli state bombing Palestine, but barely lift a finger when the Israeli state bombs Syria. But it goes further. The Israeli state was exposed as providing material support, medical aid and air strike support to ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliated groups waging war against Syria for several years.[16] The Zionist Israeli state was effectively coordinating efforts with the murderous barbarian mercenary terrorists the US Empire falsely claimed to be combatting – yet none of this warranted a sprig of condemnation from most pro-Palestine left parties. Israeli state repression of Palestine is wrong, but Israeli state aid, assistance and material back up for ISIS and Al Qaeda is fine and dandy?

The Lebanese Hezbollah is likewise known for its support for the Palestinian resistance. Recently Hezbollah sent a delegation to meet with Hamas and Islamic Jihad commanders, during which they pledged “complete support” to the Palestinian resistance to the Israeli enemy.[17] Hezbollah inflicted a severe military defeat[18] on the Israeli state in 2006 when it invaded Lebanon with the express aim of wiping out Hezbollah. As decisive as the military victory was, it was also a political defeat for the US government, which backed Israel to the hilt. Despite this, many supposedly pro-Palestine leftists not only ignore Hezbollah’s deeds, but undermine it by backing anti-Hezbollah uprisings in Lebanon.[19] In short, without Hezbollah, Syria and Iran, the Palestinian resistance would not exist. Unfortunately, for many Palestinian solidarity types, acknowledging this would mean breaking with their de-facto overall backing of US imperialist foreign policy – something they are not prepared to do.

The liberal trap of BDS

Even though some Western leftists are sheepish about it, many of them abjectly fail to put forward a Marxist critique of the liberal Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. Every element of BDS is an appeal to non-working class elements, and even implore the direct class enemy to “join” the campaign. “Boycott” refers to consumer boycotts of Israeli produced goods and services – which assumes that people can change the functioning of not only corporations, but capitalism itself, by choosing to consume different products. It also assumes that working class people have the time and the disposable income to investigate the source of a product, when many of them only have time for a once-a-week grocery run, let alone a shop for expensive treats.  The middle and upper classes have the luxury of time and spare wads of cash, but most workers generally do not.

“Divestment” refers to pleas direct to corporate vultures themselves to invest their millions anywhere else apart from Israel. It implies that if a corporation divests their financial interests from Israeli businesses, they are therefore no longer “bad” corporations, but very “good” ones. This is petty-bourgeois nonsense. A capitalist corporation operates by exploiting the labour of the working class and the natural environment. Its function is plunder, which is why socialists organise to expropriate corporations, or at least initially the largest ones, for public benefit. BDS “divestment” inherently recognises the right of capitalists to enrich themselves, which is anything but progressive.

“Sanctions” refers to plaintive entreaties aimed towards not only capitalist states, but the very imperialist states which provide the material, political, financial and military aid to the Zionist state itself! Its as if the open and organised imperialist states – the US, the EU, Canada, Australia etc. – can somehow be fraternal allies (!) in the struggle against “Israel”. A better definition of liberalism cannot be found. Such demands reinforce nationalist claptrap (“our government”!) amongst workers when its precise opposite – working class internationalism – is most sorely needed. If “our own” bourgeois class can improve their image by applying sanctions on “Israel”, why bother with class struggle?

Every political tactic used by Marxists must seek to raise the level class consciousness amongst workers, domestically and internationally. BDS does the direct opposite – it marshals the “people” of the world against “Israel”, when the aim should be to co-ordinate joint action by Israeli, Palestinian and international workers against capitalism and against imperialism. As much of a problem as Zionism (the ideology of an exclusively Jewish state for Jewish people) is, it can only be overcome by the removal of capitalism in Israel and Palestine. Zionism is not at all threatened by Palestinian nationalism, even when it is backed by millions of misguided solidarity activists worldwide. This is because the nationalism of a small state automatically leads to the recognition, in turn, to the nationalism of a large state. In fact, it recognises the “right” of even imperialist states to exist.

Neither the nationalism of Hamas, Fatah or BDS offers the smallest possibility of liberating oppressed Palestinians. What is required is a bi-national Arab-Hebrew workers’ state, as part of a socialist federation of the Middle East. Key to this task is the forging of Leninist vanguard parties throughout the region, which seeks to prepare a socialist revolution. As far away as that prospect now appears, the barriers of nationality and religion cannot be overcome without it.

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

[1] https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2021/05/18/Death-toll-in-Israeli-attacks-on-Gaza-rises-to-213-including-61-children (23-05-2021)

[2] https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2021/05/22/UN-says-50-pct-of-Gaza-water-network-destroyed-in-recent-Israeli-raids (23-05-2021)

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/17/world/middleeast/israel-palestine-gaza-conflict-death-toll.html (23-05-2021)

[4] https://www.businessinsider.com/sheikh-jarrah-palestinians-challenge-evictions-and-the-repeat-of-history-2021-5?op=1 (23-05-2021)

[5] https://mondoweiss.net/2021/05/this-isnt-a-civil-war-it-is-settler-colonial-brutality/ (23-05-2021)

[6] https://twitter.com/4noura/status/1392582500359319555 (23-05-2021)

[7] https://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-arab-violence-rolls-through-cities-like-wildfire-with-police-overwhelmed/ (23-05-2021)

[8] https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-military-aid-does-the-us-give-to-israel/ (23-05-2021)

[9] https://apnews.com/article/hamas-middle-east-elections-religion-government-and-politics-e88636bc919f8aab455e01fbbd4b4391 (26-05-2021)

[10] https://off-guardian.org/2021/01/31/phantom-virus-in-search-of-sars-cov-2/ (26-05-2021)

[11] https://redfireonline.com/2021/03/31/year-one-of-the-lockdown-left/ (26-05-2021)

[12] https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-israel-plans-to-operate-a-covid-green-pass-and-prevent-forgeries/ (26-05-2021)

[13] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/who-are-pro-assad-militias-syria (26-05-2021)

[14] https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2021/05/22/hamas-leader-thanks-iran-for-providing-weapons-n2589853 (26-05-2021)

[15] https://ejmagnier.com/2020/02/27/israel-bombs-syria-how-long-can-this-go-on/ (26-05-2021)

[16] https://21stcenturywire.com/2015/02/19/un-report-reveals-how-israel-is-coordinating-with-isis-militants-inside-syria/ (26-05-2021)

[17] https://en.abna24.com/news/sheikh-naim-qassem-hezbollah-completely-supports-palestinian-resistance (26-05-2021)

[18] https://www.counterpunch.org/2006/10/13/how-hezbollah-defeated-israel-2/ (26-05-2021)

[19] https://redfireonline.com/2020/05/09/lebanon-colour-revolution-redux/ (26-05-2021)

Land Forces 2021: No to War on China!

/ redfireonline / Leave a comment

China bases surround

Above: Map showing US military bases encircling the People’s Republic of China (PRC)

25-04-2021: The threat of war in the Asia-Pacific looms as large as it ever has in 2021. Or should we say, the Indo Asia Pacific. The language emanates from the highest levels of Washington’s war machine, which operates a number of “Commands” in regions across the globe to maintain the US Empire. In 2018, the US Pacific Command was renamed the Indo-Pacific Command,[1] as US imperialism sought to draw India into their efforts to militarily encircle the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Transparently, US imperialism and its allies such as the governments of the European Union (EU), Australia and Japan, are hell-bent on potentially apocalyptic military confrontations with Red China, demographically the largest nation on Earth. The PRC’s gigantic and still expanding socialist economy is rapidly overtaking the faltering capitalist economies of the West – something the US/EU ruling classes will risk anything to prevent from coming to pass.

The formation of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or “Quad”, is another dead giveaway as to the intentions. Hardly an innocent undertaking, the Quad is a glaring attempt to draw more US allies into an explicit anti-China military alliance – containing the US, Japan, Australia and India. Its apologists deny that the Quad is being set up as an Asian NATO,[2] but here the axiom of never believing anything until it is officially denied cannot be more apposite. The geographical surrounding of mainland China from Japan to its East, Australia to its South, and India to its West is easily triangulated by the briefest of perusals of a high school map of the region. As in the 1950s and 60s, the once supreme Western ruling classes are yet again embroiled in a deadly game to “contain and roll back communism”. This time, arguably, the stakes are even higher.

Military grade weapons expo

This is the geopolitical context which surrounds Brisbane hosting a weapons manufacturers expo in early June. The very title of the conference indicates not just a military grade weapons garage sale, but a subliminal message as to who the organisers wish to portray as the boogeyman “we” need to arm ourselves against. The first line of the publicity for the expo of Land Forces Australia Indo Asia Pacific International Land Defence Exposition states openly that the expo showcases “equipment, technology and services for the armies of Australia and the Indo Asia Pacific”.[3] The explicit exclusion of China, by far the largest component of Asia, gives the game away. The weapons manufacturers such as Thales, Rheinmetall Defence, Boeing, DB Schenker, BAE Systems, EOS etc., are joined by the Queensland Government and the Australian Army as event sponsors.[4] The links between weapons manufacturers and the governments of capitalist countries have been well documented over the last century. Such governments prosecute wars which then feeds the profits of weapons manufacturers. Yet this does not occur without underlying politics driving it. Without being stated overtly, the prevailing politics of the corporate and government sponsors of Land Forces 2021 are directed against Red China.

To be sure, what exists in the PRC is not a socialist society but rather a socialist state. And this state is heavily and bureaucratically deformed, both by the multi-class character of its 1949 revolution, and the saddling of this state with the Maoist/Stalinist politics of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Despite this, the capitalist mode of production was overthrown, land was nationalised, the predominant and strategic means of production remain publicly owned, and the economy is administered through five-year plans. This – rather than the politics of the CPC – is what must be defended by working people. At the same time, to synchronise the socialist state of the PRC with socialist politics, what is required is the rule of elected workers’ councils comprised of all political tendencies committed to the defence of modern China. That is to say, genuine Leninist-Trotskyism must prevail over the distortions of Maoism/Stalinism, despite its relative popularity in the PRC due to 20th Century history.

Disrupt LandForces 2021

Unfortunately, neither the defence of the PRC state against US/AUST imperialism, nor even opposition to war on China is on the agenda of the activists organising a series of protests against the military expo, under the hashtag of “#DisruptLandForces”.[5] In fact, by the omission of material opposing wars fuelled, led and directed by the US Empire, #DisruptLandForces can find themselves on the same side of the barricades as the US/EU/AUST imperialism, even if this is not their intention. The wars that threaten humanity in 2021 are wars waged by the imperialist bloc and their allies -US/EU/AUST/JAP/CAN/Israel/Saudi Arabia etc., against the non-imperialist bloc and their allies – China, Russia, Iran, the DPRK, Libya, Syria, Venezuela and so on. Most of these wars are proxy regime change operations waged by imperialism against the allies of the non-imperialist bloc. Examples are the destruction of Green Libya in 2011, the Nazi coup in Ukraine in 2014, the failed regime change war on Syria from 2011 on, and attempted regime change destabilisations in Lebanon,[6] Algeria,[7] Sudan,[8] the Philippines,[9] Thailand[10] and Myanmar[11]. Workers must resolutely oppose all such regime change wars and attempted colour revolutions organised and funded by imperialism as a matter of self-defence, even if this means a temporary bloc with governments targeted by Anglo/US imperialism which could not be described as left-leaning or even progressive.

Moreover, #DisruptLandForces activists implore progressive folk to picket Land Forces 2021 primarily on the basis that weapons manufacturers will make millions from making weapons of war. While this is true in itself, the implication that there should be no army, or that no nation should maintain and operate a defence force will be automatically rejected by the working class. The working class cannot be won to a position that their nation-state should reduce all military spending to zero, and nor should leftists make such an attempt. This is effectively a demand for the capitalist state to abolish itself, and while workers are no automatic fans of capitalism, they recognise that states as such cannot be abolished overnight.  Working people can, however, be won to positions which oppose imperialist wars, i.e. predatory wars of conquest waged by the Anglo/US Empire – which today includes proxy wars of regime change and Western funded subversion. Therefore, the left should attempt to convince workers to oppose particular wars, not the manufacture of weapons per se.  


Myanmar


At the same time, there is obviously a need for working people to oppose the $270 billion by 2030 defence spending plan of the Australian government, which was announced in June 2020[12]. This is because the Australian ruling class itself – through its government – hardly shies away from an admission that the vast bulk of this spending will be used to militarily confront and provoke China, albeit as junior sidekicks of the US government. They state openly that “we want a free and open Indo-Pacific”, i.e., one not “controlled” or even influenced by the PRC, but in fact presided over by the US and their allies. This is not even slightly realistic, as the PRC is the largest nation on earth, it is situated in the Asia-Pacific, and its economy is still growing rapidly. It is thus in a position to offer much needed economic development and infrastructure building projects to its near neighbours – something the Anglo/US powers simply cannot, given their geographical distance and their long-term economic woes. The only way the US/EU/AUST ruling classes can prevent this from happening is by sowing chaos, sabotage and destabilisation up to and including the collapse of states. Ergo, Myanmar today.

#DisruptLandforces proclaim their solidarity with the “people of Myanmar”.[13] Here they display their loyalty – perhaps unwittingly – to the very “colonisers” they claim to be protesting against. British imperialism certainly did rule what was then Burma until independence in 1948. Since then, the UK ruling class has not ceased its efforts to virtually recolonise Myanmar. It works in concert with the US state department to create and fund an entire “opposition” movement which will politically serve London and Washington, e.g., Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy (NLD).[14] They managed to subvert Myanmar’s societal institutions to such an extent that Suu Kyi became State Counsellor in 2015. The government of Myanmar had allowed this overt foreign intervention into Myanmar’s internal affairs for decades, as many third world countries generally welcome any financial assistance from the West.  However, the NLD, with backing from Wall Street, London and billionaire regime change kingmaker George Soros, had ensured by around 2015 that only they could “win” elections in Myanmar. Finally, on February 1 this year, the Tatmadaw (Myanmar military) stepped in and said enough is enough. Thus the military “coup” was in fact an act which defended the national sovereignty of Myanmar.[15]

The “anti-coup” protests in Myanmar since early February have in fact been the culmination of decades of US and UK government funding for scores of imperialist backed fronts posing as “civil society” organisations and “NGOs”. The narrative in the Western corporate media of the Tatmadaw mowing down entirely innocent and unarmed “protestors” in the streets of Myanmar is utterly false and is eerily reminiscent of the storyline spun by Western governments to cover their atrocious regime change wars in Libya and Syria.[16] As much as the Tatmadaw is demonised via the corporate press, it remains the only institution standing in the way of a total takeover by Washington and London. In a similar way in which the Pentagon’s regime change war on Syria was aimed at Russia (and Iran), today’s “uprising” in Myanmar has been carefully prepared by years and decades of covert funding for ANY opposition which could serve the interests of imperialism in its losing economic war with Beijing. Patently, Myanmar’s “protests” today are in fact a US/UK proxy war of regime change against Red China.[17]

West Papua

If #DisruptLandForces fall prey to deception in relation to Myanmar, they double and triple their illusions in relation to West Papua (the Indonesian provinces of Papua and Papua Barat). #DisruptLandForces, and many “peace” activists, imagine that the Indonesian government occupies West Papua, suppresses their culture, and uses armed force to take the lives of those who call for “independence”.[18] This inversion of reality is regurgitated by liberals the world over, who are generally not aware that they are being ensnared by the very people they claim to be fighting for. The West Papuan “independence” movement is not an innocent campaign for “human rights”, but an armed separatist insurgency predominantly motivated by ethnic antagonism. This inevitably spills over into murderous anti-Indonesian violence, which the Indonesian government must respond to. For example, in December 2018, armed Papuan separatists slaughtered 31 Indonesian road workers constructing the Trans-Papua Highway.[19] Papuans who do not necessarily support separatist independence can also be targeted with lethal intent, as in the case of the town of Wamena in September 2019. On that occasion, Papuan separatist militia attacked and burnt down sections of the town, killing 30, including 8 non-Papuan Indonesians.[20]

This is not to say that there are no political and economic problems existing in West Papua. Yet Indonesia is far from an imperialist entity, and all indications are that the Indonesian government is attempting to include, rather than exclude, Papuans within the “Unitary State of Indonesia”. The Indonesian government regularly spends billions of rupiah in economic and social development in West Papua, and not only by building the Trans-Papua Highway. Where the geographical terrain does not prevent it, education (up to Year 9) and health care is provided for West Papuans free of charge. The Indonesian government is also pressing ahead with its plans to provide electricity to all areas of West Papua, in some places which have never before seen a light bulb.[21] Would a separate West Papua, standing on its own, have such resources? To ask the question is to answer it.

For an end to hybrid wars

#DisruptLandForces is also silent on the major war underway against the global south and the workers of the world – the fake “Covid-19” pandemic. The “virus” provides a cover for lockdowns, which are a form of extreme violence against working and oppressed people – no less than physical wars waged with weapons. Thus we find that both #DisruptLandForces and Land Forces 2021 in fact both agree on  just who is the enemy: Covid-19 and China!  Needless to say, working people need to resist ALL hybrid wars waged by imperialism – against “Covid”, or China, or Russia, or whoever is the next target. Essential for this is the building of a vanguard party upholding genuine Marxism, with international sections dedicated to the supersession of capitalism and the inauguration of a socialist order.

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

[1] https://www.pacom.mil/About-USINDOPACOM/History/ (18-04-2021)

[2] https://thediplomat.com/2021/03/the-quad-what-it-is-and-what-it-is-not/ (18-04-2021)

[3] https://www.landforces.com.au/ (18-04-2021)

[4] https://www.landforces.com.au/about/sponsors-stakeholders.asp (18-04-2021)

[5] DISRUPT LANDFORCES – Disrupt Land Forces (18-04-2021)

[6] https://redfireonline.com/2020/05/09/lebanon-colour-revolution-redux/ (21-04-2021)

[7] https://redfireonline.com/2019/04/18/algeria-us-foments-destabilisation-in-africa/ (21-04-2021)

[8] https://redfireonline.com/2019/06/20/sudan-us-plots-further-balkanisation/ (21-04-2021)

[9] https://redfireonline.com/2018/10/05/philippines-bogus-narratives-pushed-by-western-powers/ (21-04-2021)

[10] https://redfireonline.com/2020/10/11/thailand-the-us-empires-democracy-movement/ (21-04-2021)

[11] https://redfireonline.com/2021/04/08/myanmar-western-backed-subversion-aids-regime-change-war/ (21-04-2021)

[12] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-30/australia-unveils-10-year-defence-strategy/12408232 (21-04-2021)

[13] https://www.facebook.com/disruptlandforces/posts/126753716130377 (24-04-2021)

[14] https://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2012/05/wall-street-proxy-mother-suu-begins.html (24-04-2021)

[15] https://redfireonline.com/2021/02/07/myanmar-military-moves-against-us-subversion/ (24-04-2021)

[16] https://journal-neo.org/2021/03/31/myanmar-libya-and-syria-dangerous-parallels/ (24-04-2021)

[17] https://redfireonline.com/2021/04/08/myanmar-western-backed-subversion-aids-regime-change-war/ (24-04-2021)

[18] https://disruptlandforces.org/west-papua-resources/ (25-04-2021)

[19] https://redfireonline.com/2019/09/04/west-papua-separatists-incite-violence/ (25-04-2021)

[20] https://redfireonline.com/2019/10/05/wamena-papuan-militia-terrorise-civilians/ (25-04-2021)

[21] https://redfireonline.com/2020/12/23/west-papua-separatists-declare-fake-government/ (25-04-2021)

Strike for Freedom!

/ redfireonline / Leave a comment

Statement of the Workers League

20-03-2021: As worldwide rallies for freedom take place on March 20, most of Western Europe remains under some form of lockdown or curfew, with protest remaining illegal. People can be arrested and charged for “being outdoors without a valid reason”. While lockdowns are being partially lifted in other parts of the world, the lies supposedly justifying previously unimaginable oppression continue. The attempt to vaccinate 7.8 billion people on the planet proceeds, for a virus whose very existence is scientifically disputed. These “vaccines” are entirely political, purely experimental, and are likely to be extremely harmful if not deadly. The same governments which forced healthy men, women and children into barbarous lockdowns now claim that the vaccine is not mandatory at the same time as preparing “Covid Passports” for international travel, domestic travel, and even for access to cinemas, concerts, sporting events and to shop at local grocery stores. This is already a reality in Israel.

Fraudulent removal of rights

Even though it may appear as though business is returning to pre-Covid times, this is also an illusion. Most governments around the world continue to hold the Covid card and are ready to wield it at any moment. Basic civil and democratic rights have either been removed or can be removed once again – with the excuse of “Covid” or “Covid variants”. The right to protest, the right to travel, freedom of movement, the right to purchase food, the right to leave your house, the right not to be forced into wearing an ineffectual and unhealthy facemask, the right to see your friends, the right to see your relatives, the right to visit the elderly and unwell in care homes or hospitals – all of these and more can be removed at any time the authorities deem it so. There was no “pandemic” and there is no “pandemic”. There are only mountains of lies from the corporate media and puppet politicians. Covid is a fraud which is used to increase political repression to levels which arguably exceed historical examples of fascism. In that sense, Covid is the highest form of class war against working people.

Covid was the shroud for the removal of employment for millions of workers worldwide. Whole sections of capitalist economies where shutdown or driven into bankruptcy. Millions of small businesses collapsed, while the largest and wealthiest monopoly corporations on the planet stepped into the void and subsequently amassed windfall profits. This happens in every recession, but this time it is much more apparent. This indicates that the real Covid agenda was a deliberate destruction of some sections of capital to secure and bolster the highest sections of finance capital. It was political action by the ruling classes of the imperialist West undertaken to protect capitalism regardless of the economic, political, and human cost to billions of people around the globe.

Covid is also geo-political. World imperialism, led by the ruling classes of the US and the EU, tailed by their lackeys in Canada, Holland, Australia, New Zealand etc., were floundering behind the economic rise of China, and the military power of Russia. Defeated and repelled at war in Syria, the imperialist powers used the cover of Covid to further develop internal subversion aimed at regime change in Myanmar, Thailand, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Lebanon, Algeria, Sudan, Venezuela and the list goes on. NATO uses the fig leaf of Covid to continue to militarily provoke Russia, China, the DPRK and Iran.

Liberalism the vehicle chosen by the elite

There is worldwide resistance to lockdown terror. Mass rallies and demonstrations repeatedly occur across Europe, the US, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. These are largely blacklisted or ignored by the mainstream media, as the ruling class actively attempts to deny there is mass public opposition – or deride it as being comprised of “anti-vaxxers” and “conspiracy theorists”. Yet the main reason these demonstrations are not overwhelmingly backed by the vast majority of the working class is the epic betrayal of Union officials and parties which falsely claim to be “left-wing” and “socialist”. These layers are not at all left-wing, as their enlistment in the service of the capitalist state over Covid makes crystal clear. These forces are liberal, i.e., they insist they are reforming the system in a progressive direction. However, the loyalty of these elements to capitalism is now so strong that they are prepared to enact fascist-like measures against workers fighting for freedom from lockdowns.

Hence, the “Great Reset” and the “New Normal” launched or backed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), and the World Economic Forum (WEF) is NOT part of a left-wing agenda. It is a capitalist attack headed by liberals with left-sounding phraseology. It can appear as though it is the conservative and nationalist political forces which are resisting planet lockdown. This is only partially true, because while many conservatives and nationalists oppose lockdowns from the point of view of liberty, they of course do not extend this to recognise the need for the overturn of the capitalist system via the establishment of workers’ governments administering a series of workers’ states.

For a general strike!

The anti-lockdown movement thus far has more than demonstrated the bravery required to defy totalitarian rule. At the same time, to achieve its goals it needs two elements which are yet to materialise. One is clear political leadership, and the other is a firmly pro working-class orientation. Due to the nature of the assault issuing from finance capital, it is only the working class organised internationally which has the potential to stop and reverse lockdown terror. The petty-bourgeois class, despite being pummelled by lockdowns, is genetically unable to take a political line independent of big capital. To spur the development of both the political leadership and the proletarian orientation necessary, the anti-lockdown movement needs to call for a general strike against forced lockdowns, facemasks, vaccines, economic shutdowns, border closures, tracking and tracing and the use of state power to enforce absurd and offensive dictates which obviously have no medical basis. The organisation of a general strike requires the formation of strike committees, with the only stipulation for entry into such committees being a sworn opposition to every element of Covid oppression. If developed with vigour, such strike committees can then lead to organs of a new state, which will vie with the lockdown states for the loyalty of working and oppressed people. At the same time, all parties which oppose lockdowns will contest each other for workers’ political allegiance. Permanent relief from lockdown fascism will only arrive with this new power – a workers’ government.

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

Biden Bombs Syria: The First Covid War?

/ redfireonline / Leave a comment

Kataib Hezbollah fighters on the march. Image from RT.com

05.03.2021: Just two weeks after declaring the US would not return to forever wars under his administration[1], fraudulently installed President Joe Biden rained bombs on Syria, targeting Iranian supported militias fighting US backed Al Qaeda terrorists operating in the region. Biden was only 36 days into his first term before ordering the bombing of the Middle East[2], once again risking the escalation of an even more catastrophic regime change war. This comes hard on the heels of Biden’s re-invasion of Syria just two days into his Presidency, where 200 US troops and 60 military vehicles crossed the border[3] into Syria to “assist” US backed Kurdish separatist rule in northern Syria. Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby stated that the US airstrikes targeted facilities used by Iranian backed militias including Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada. Stretching the limits of plausibility, Kirby claimed that the strikes were in response to rocket attacks on US troops but were deliberately calibrated to de-escalate the overall situation in eastern Syria and Iraq.[4]

US Empire uses Covid to reignite regime change war on Syria

The US government claimed it gave notice to the Russian government before the strikes took place. It did – but the notice was only four minutes. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared that “This kind of notification does nothing when the strike is literally already on its way”.[5] Transparently, US imperialism is hell bent on attempting to reverse the defeat it suffered during the regime change war it attempted in Syria from 2011 onwards. The combination of resistance from the Syrian government, with military backing from Russia and Iran, arguably dealt US imperialism its first defeat since the Vietnam War. The Pentagon did not succeed in toppling Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, despite spending $500 million, at the very least, funding and arming deranged mercenary forces[6] to do so. The superiority of Russian air power, combined with the considerable skills of Iranian backed ground militias and heroic Syrian army martyrs – delivered a crushing of ISIS and, by extension, Wall Street.

Washington was stung by this defeat and has never accepted it. Now, their assault on the world’s working and oppressed people under the code name of “Covid”, opens a small window to re-start the regime change war on Syria. While the governments of Russia and Iran performed heroics to stop US imperialism in its tracks in Syria, during 2020 both entities unfortunately marched in lockstep with the US Empire by entertaining the Covid plot.[7] The coronavirus charade was always going to be used by US/EU imperialism against their opponents, and the Russian and Iranian governments’ acquiescence to the fear “pandemic” nonsense only slightly delayed a direct broadside from Washington. Russia and Iran’s mimicking of Western government lockdowns, forced facemasks and forced vaccines was never going to be accepted as currency for respect for their national sovereignty, or much else. Nothing less than regime change and substitute pro-US satrap governments in Syria, Iran and Russia would appease the ruling classes of the US/EU. Indeed, the war on Syria was arguably a stepping stone on the road to regime change in the Islamic Republic of Iran, by first eliminating one of Russia’s key allies.

Liberalism accelerates political disintegration

When capitalism enters a steep decline, parliamentary democracy soon becomes insufficiently repressive for the tasks the bourgeoisie needs to carry out to ensure the maintenance of its rule. Basic democratic and civil rights become an obstacle and need to be sidelined. This was one of the goals of the various forms of lockdown fascism initiated by capital in the West during 2020. This particular form of fascism, which was covered with the excuse of “Covid”, was NOT led by a far-right ultra-nationalist stormtroopers but by “left-wing” anti-socialists such as: Antifa, Black Lives Matter (BLM) and the lockdown left who tailed the mind-bogglingly conservative Union bureaucracy. This liberal pro-corporate set heavily endorsed the fake pandemic and even – believe it or not – campaigned for longer and stricter lockdowns. While there is no doubt that these forces dragged along some youth and working people who believed they were doing something progressive, their leading lights knew exactly what their task was – to defend capitalist imperialism using any means up to and including violence.

The identity politics, the faux anti-racism, the disingenuous refugee rights activism of Antifa, BLM (which has conveniently disappeared from the streets now that there is a Democrat in the White House) and the lockdown left – combined with Union officialdom – has only strengthened finance capital. All of these forces endorsed and enforced the fake pandemic with its brutally anti-working class lockdowns, forced facemasks, forced vaccines, and tracking and tracing. The Covid ruse enabled the fascistic repression the ruling class required to savage the cost of labour power – through hundreds of millions of job cuts, economic shutdowns and border closures. The extreme Covid political repression also enables the bourgeoisie to wage imperialist war, such as the one being reanimated in Syria. For working people can scarcely organise political opposition to a war when they are separated from each other, when meetings have been banned, and when state borders are barricaded.

What is required is political action which demands US troops exit Syria immediately, and a prompt end to US/EU sanctions and provocations against Syria, Russia and Iran. The threatened imperialist wars against Syria, Russia, Iran and even China are bound up with the Covid war on working people at home. This is despite the deceitful Covid cooperation with Washington by Moscow, Tehran and Beijing. Wars can only be stopped by overthrowing the government waging it – this is the cardinal lesson of the October Revolution of 1917. Then, as now, Marxist leadership of the working class is a critical first step towards the end of imperialist wars and the socialist liberation of humanity.

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

[1] Biden Bombs Syria Just Two Weeks After Promising Not To Go Back To Forever Wars In The Middle East….. (thefolliesofdistributism.com) (28-02-2021)

[2] It Only Took Joe Biden 36 Days to Bomb the Middle East – 19FortyFive (28-02-2021)

[3] US Convoy Reported Moving Into Syria From Iraq – News From Antiwar.com (28-02-2021)

[4] ‘Joe Biden Just Dropped Bombs on Syria. Here We Go Again’: US Responds to Rocket Attacks With Airstrikes | Common Dreams News (28-02-2021)

[5] Mismatch: Biden bombs Syria while pushing progressive economic bill at home – People’s World (28-02-2021)

[6] https://abcnews.go.com/International/video/us-approves-500-million-fund-arm-moderate-syrian-25633715 (28-02-2021)

[7] https://redfireonline.com/2020/04/18/covid-19-savage-assault-under-the-guise-of-health/ (28-02-2021)

Syria: Biden Reignites Obama’s War

/ redfireonline / 1 Comment

04-02-2021: You may have missed it, but the deep state coup installed US President Biden has already restarted former President Obama’s war of regime change against the Syrian Arab Republic. On the first day of the Biden Presidency, a large convoy of 40 US trucks and armoured vehicles rolled into Syria from Iraq.[1] Joe Biden is at least keeping one of his promises to reverse the policies of the Trump Administration. For all of Donald Trump’s shortcomings, he at least began the withdrawal of US troops from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan,[2] as he had initially campaigned against the “forever” regime change wars. Now that the Democrats are back in the White House thanks to the barely concealed falsification of Presidential election ballots[3], they have not wasted time in reigniting a war for regime change which liberal icon Obama ignited and sustained along with NATO, the UK, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Qatari monarchy and the Zionist Israeli state.[4] Liberals love war, especially when it is waged by Democrats in the US White House.

SDF assists US occupation

The absurdly named “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDF) – violent Kurdish separatists revered by liberals in the West – are up to their usual crimes as proxy forces for US imperialism. They have been imposing a siege on the northern cities of Hasakah and Qamishli, blocking water tankers by closing the entries and exits to neighbourhoods controlled by the Syrian Army. Food, flour and water has been blocked by the treacherous Kurdish forces, seemingly in response to demands from the US government to mark the coronation of Biden – including the halting Syria’s oil to the different regions of Syria.[5]  With military assistance from the US, the SDF has taken control of large parts of northern Syria where much of its oil and wheat production lies. There have been weeks of protests by Syrians in these areas against the abuses of the US backed SDF, and Syria’s President Assad has accused the YPG (“People’s Protection Units” – an armed wing linked to the Kurdish PKK in Turkey) of treachery[6] for aiding the theft of oil and wheat supplies by the US Empire.

The US led war for regime change in Syria is arguably the dirtiest proxy war ever waged in history. From 2011 on, the former Obama administration actively aided and even created ISIS, and funneled arms[7] to Al Qaeda and a whole host of barbaric mercenaries. These homicidal maniacs terrorised Syria for years under the blatantly false guise of a “democratic uprising”. At one stage there were mercenaries from around 80 different non-Syrian nationalities fighting with or alongside ISIS in Syria and Iraq.[8] Thankfully, these guns for hire were defeated by a combination of resistance from the Syrian government, aided by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.

Hands Off Syria splits into anti-lockdown and pro-lockdown

The solidarity organisation Hands Off Syria formed in response, to defend Syria against the imperialist war driven from Washington. It had to contend with what became known as the “imperial left” – the majority of centrist left parties which firmly backed the war on Syria. Unfortunately, during the 2020 Covid fear “pandemic” – a ruse to cover an assault on the global working class[9] – the component parts of the Hands Off Syria coalition fell apart. It was more or less a 50-50 split – some backed the scientifically groundless lockdowns imposed by out of control governments, while the others strongly opposed them. Those who advocated lockdowns joined hands with the very forces they had condemned and denounced during the war on Syria. The imperial left was joined by some who had opposed the regime change war to form the “lockdown left” – ostensibly left parties who did not blink while becoming police auxiliaries of the very imperialist states which besieged Syria.

Tim Anderson, a prominent academic and activist leader of Hands Off Syria, led the charge in attempting to shoehorn the working class into voluntarily enslaving themselves to the very governments which spared no expense attempting to overthrow Syria.[10] On the other hand, Vanessa Beeley, a UK based investigative journalist who exhaustively exposed the lies justifying the war on Syria, turned her immense research and communication skills towards countering the irrationality of lockdown mania.[11] That is, arguably the two foremost public figures spearheading the movement against the war on Syria, came up with diametrically opposed positions on the alleged Covid “pandemic”. Any serious political issue can split an organisation on class lines, and this was no exception.

Whether they are aware of it or not, the lockdown left has dramatically aided the political forces of imperialism and has therefore contributed to dynamics which could launch yet another imperialist war – even World War III. While they bent over backwards to help install the Democrats in the Oval Office in Washington (despite adamantly denying doing so), the lockdown left has unleashed a liberal bourgeoisie which is much more dangerous than its conservative wing. Alongside Big Tech and Big Pharma, the lockdown left bears heavy responsibility for the re-invasion of Syria by the Biden administration. What is urgently required is a left-wing which combats imperialism on ALL fronts, from  Covid lockdowns to regime change wars. Such a force can only be assembled via the forging of internationally linked Leninist vanguard parties, which can help lead the struggle against Covid launched wars and for the construction of planned economies based on public ownership.

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

 

[1] https://www.nationandstate.com/2021/01/23/a-large-us-military-convoy-rolled-into-syria-on-1st-day-of-biden-presidency/ (01-02-2021)

[2] https://davidharrisjr.com/steven/just-like-the-good-old-days-joe-biden-invades-syria-with-convoy-of-us-troops-and-choppers-on-first-full-day-as-president/ (01-02-2021)

[3] https://www.rt.com/op-ed/508738-us-election-stolen-democracy/ (01-02-2021)

[4] https://journal-neo.org/2016/08/28/syria-the-obama-conviction/ (01-02-2021)

[5] https://www.syrianews.cc/us-sponsored-kurdish-sdf-separatists-besiege-syrian-cities-in-hasakah/ (03-02-2021)

[6] https://news.yahoo.com/u-backed-kurds-lift-siege-185142988.html (03-02-2021)

[7] https://www.voltairenet.org/article183223.html (03-02-2021)

[8] https://www.iraqinews.com/iraq-war/15000-foreigners-80-countries-fight-isis-iraq-syria-says-united-nations/ (03-02-2021)

[9] https://redfireonline.com/2020/04/18/covid-19-savage-assault-under-the-guise-of-health/ (03-02-2021)

[10] https://off-guardian.org/2020/11/10/the-great-viral-debate-dr-andersons-closing-statement/ (03-02-2021)

[11] https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/who-controls-british-government-response-covid19-part-one (03-02-2021)

Iran: Baha’i Used as Yet Another Excuse for Regime Change War

/ redfireonline / Leave a comment

View of the World Baha’i Centre in Haifa, Israel.

04-01-2021: As the orchestrated removal of the US Trump Administration nears its end, the Israeli state is likely behind multiple attempts to trap President Trump into attacking the Islamic Republic of Iran, again. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif stated that its intelligence via Iraq indicated that Israeli agents-provocateurs were planning attacks on Americans in the region, in the hope that the US Empire would have no choice but to launch strikes on Iran.[1] While the Trump Administration largely faced down relentless pressure from the Democrats and the Deep State to wage war against Russia, it has remained bellicose towards Iran, even assassinating top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani at the start of 2020. Any and every excuse is used to agitate for a regime change war on Iran, the largest independent power in the Middle East. An ongoing one is supposed “repression” of the Baha’i.

Innocent religious beliefs?

Some on the left fall for the liberal imperialist “humanitarian” war agenda, such as the appalling proxy war against the Syrian Arab Republic from 2011 to the present day. Many of the same actors make wistful but entirely deceitful claims that the Baha’i in Iran are simply being persecuted for innocent religious beliefs that differ from those of the predominantly Shiite Islam held by the Iranian governmental system. An ABC News Australia report would even claim that arbitrary arrests and home raids of Baha’i believers are currently “escalating”. The accompanying blurb would claim that Baha’i beliefs include “truthfulness, equality and human rights, and an emphasis on the essential worth of all religions”.[2] In reality, there could not be a greater distortion of the political role of the Baha’i in Iran.

Many in Iran who still back the overwhelmingly popular 1979 revolution view the Baha’i as “Zionist spies”. Is this an unfounded suspicion? Hardly – when one considers the fact that the Zionist Israeli state has allowed the Baha’i to establish their spiritual authority – the Universal House of Justice (UHJ) of their religion on a large property in Haifa, without subjecting it to any tax. The Israeli government has issued a postage stamp featuring the UHJ, and numerous Israeli Presidents and Prime Ministers have visited the World Baha’i centre in Haifa. This includes Izhak Ben Zvi in 1954, Zalman Shazar in 1964, Chaim Herzog in 1984, Yitzhak Rabin in 1994, Shimon Peres in 1994 and the current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.[3] Just these “visits” alone, from top representatives of the Zionist Israeli state which has never hidden its outright hostility to Iran, should at least raise eyebrows.

The Baha’i make the deceptive claim that they are “persecuted” in Iran because they are not allowed to practice their religion, but in fact they are only prohibited from proselytising their religion. They are entitled to practice their religion amongst themselves, get married (and divorced), pray etc – which is in fact the exact same situation in Israel itself. In Iran and Israel, the Baha’i practice is banned in terms of being able to be publicly taught and disseminated, while the private practice of the Baha’i faith is not subject to legal or governmental restriction.[4]  Despite this, the Baha’i claim to only be repressed in Iran, but not in Israel. This is just the start of a series of glaring hypocrisies.

Given the actual or claimed religious beliefs of the Baha’i, it is only logical that not only Iran and Israel, but ANY government in any country could not allow the Baha’i faith to be openly practiced. If they did, they could find themselves overthrown, or have a potential world war on their hands. Some of the Baha’i doctrine is directly political and explicitly calls for: a world super state, a world legislator, the unification of all the world’s religions under the umbrella of the Baha’i faith (!), a world parliament, a world police force, a single world currency, a world taxation system and a single auxiliary world language.[5] Alongside these, the claims that the Baha’i believe in the unity of the human race, the equality of men and women, and the need for world peace are scarcely credible, and appear to be a covering credo to obscure the actual agenda.

Any government in any country, likewise, could not allow other Baha’i views such as the abolition of all non-Baha’i legal systems[6] to be openly promulgated. Can one imagine what would happen to a group in Australia, the US and Europe openly calling for the removal of their legal systems, and its replacement with one run by their own religion? Furthermore, the Baha’i even view non-Baha’i education as “death incarnate” which leads to “stagnation”.[7]  That is, they do not wish for their children to be educated alongside other members of the community in a state or private school not run according to the Baha’i religion. This is flagrantly in breach of their professed belief in the unity and oneness of all humanity, and even of their supposed view that all religions should be equal!

No to war on Iran

A fantasy narrative about Baha’i persecution in Iran is being peddled to once again beat the drums of war against Iran, on the anniversary of the US assassination of General Qassem Soleimani. Workers the world over have a vital interest in opposing any drive to war by US/EU imperialism, no matter what the claimed justification. Even though the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has entertained the false Covid-19 “pandemic” hysteria in an effort to assuage world imperialism, this has not had any effect in deflecting the threats of war. The wars of regime change against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria were catastrophic and unjustifiable – as will be a war on Iran. War propaganda retailing false allegations of Iranian government “repression” is a key component of regime change war. All tenets of it must be exposed and rejected. NO TO REGIME CHANGE WAR ON IRAN!

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

 

[1] Iran’s foreign minister urges Trump to avoid Israel ‘trap’ to provoke war | Reuters (03-01-2021)

[2] Australia’s Baha’i community pleads for help as arbitrary arrests and home raids escalate in Iran – ABC News (03-01-2021)

[3] Home – Baha’i-Israel Relationship (webs.com) (03-01-2021

[4] Bahai Israel Relationship | The Bahai Insider (03-01-2020)

[5] Global Governance and the Baha’i Faith – The Real Agenda News (real-agenda.com) (03-01-2020)

[6] Shut down Nauru! For an Anti-Empire Refugee Rights Movement! | Red Fire (redfireonline.com) (03-01-2020)

[7] How Baha’is View non-Baha’i Schools – Baha’i principles (bahaibahai.com) (03-01-2020)

Hands off Iran! No to Regime Change War

/ redfireonline / Leave a comment

29-11-2020: Little more than 11 months after the US Empire assassinated Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) General Qassem Soleimani, the Islamic Republic of Iran announced one of its top nuclear scientists had been assassinated. The Iranian Ministry of Defense stated that armed terrorists attacked Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and his security protection team, after which he was transported to hospital, but was unable to be saved.[1] No one has claimed responsibility for the attack as yet, but it occurs on the back of rumours that US President Donald Trump would launch a strike on Iran before he leaves office on January 20 (despite a fraudulent poll where a litany of election laws were ignored and statistically impossible outcomes suspiciously delivered a “result” in favour of the Democrats).[2] Adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and military leader Hossein Deghan accused the state of Israel of trying to provoke a full-blown war in the last days in office of their US ally.[3] Hossein Salami, an IRGC Commander posted on Twitter that “..the assassination of nuclear scientists is the most obvious violent confrontation of the imperialist system to prevent us from gaining access to modern science”.[4]

British-Australian operative released in prisoner swap

This cowardly act of war against Iran comes hot on the heels of the release of Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a British/Australian academic who was sentenced to 10 years in jail in Iran for espionage. Ms Moore-Gilbert was released in exchange for three Iranians detained elsewhere.[5] The case of Moore-Gilbert is being used by the Australian government and its compliant corporate media to ramp up even more hostility to Iran, even though it is evident that the Iranian government had ample grounds for their charges of espionage. Ms Moore-Gilbert had worked as a lecturer at Melbourne University, and had attended a conference in Qom in 2018. It was at that time that Moore-Gilbert was detained and later charged and convicted of espionage, and given a 10 year sentence.[6] Moore-Gilbert has always denied the charges, but never has she, nor the corporate media, nor the Australian government, ever explained what she actually did in Iran. If she was innocent of spying, why not tell the whole story?

This refusal to explain should sound loud alarm bells. It is plausible that Moore-Gilbert was not employed or paid by the Australian government to spy on Iran. It is possible that Moore-Gilbert was yet another liberal academic who consciously or unconsciously allies herself with Australian, and therefore British and US imperialism, in their non-stop attempts to force regime change in Iran by any means. In 2019, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Abbas Mousavi stated that Moore-Gilbert was arrested on a charge of violating Iran’s national security by spying for another country.[7]  This other country is the Israeli state, and given the history of the Israeli governments’ relentless war provocations against Iran, it is entirely understandable for the Iranian government to take extreme precautions. The Sydney Morning Herald fatuously claimed that the Iranian government detained Moore-Gilbert after discovering she was in a relationship with an Israeli citizen, and was backed by the US government operated Human Rights Watch and the Australia-Israel Jewish Affairs Council.[8] From this it is not a large leap of logic to conclude that Moore-Gilbert was indeed at least aiding the Zionist Israeli state, and the Islamic Republic of Iran was justified in protecting itself from the possible consequences. Inane whining from the liberal pro-imperialist intelligentsia about how the “regime” (they are not able to deign themselves to refer to it as a government) in Iran is allegedly “oppressive” is always used by Anglo/US/AUST imperialism as political capital for catastrophic regime change war.

Iranian government rolls out “pandemic” pantomime

What the government of the Islamic Republic could be justifiably criticised for is enacting its own scientifically groundless lockdowns[9] and medically absurd facemask mandates, which mirror the actions of the imperialist governments targeting them for destruction. From November 21, the Iranian government moved to close 150 cities on partial or full lockdown, with even a ban on cars entering or exiting.[10] The aping of the actions of the imperialist ruling classes against their own workers is a major error, one perhaps carried out to assuage the relentless war campaign against it from the West. Alas, if anything, this has only encouraged the imperialists to step up their war moves. Imperialism cannot be appeased, no matter how many times non-imperialist governments act in the same way and adopt public policies identical to the governments of the US/NATO/EU Empire. Imperialism cannot tolerate any degree of independence, even one which seeks to replicate some of its own practices.

Despite this, it is in the vital interests of working people the world over to defend the Islamic Republic of Iran against a Western led war of regime change. Iran’s role in militarily assisting the defeat of US imperialism in Syria was heroic, and vital because the Iranian government understood that if Washington/London/Paris was able to overthrow Syria, it would itself be next. Iran does not have nuclear weapons capability, but it must have the sovereign right to develop any energy source it requires – including nuclear generated electricity. The repeated assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists at the hands of the West, combines with medieval siege type sanctions to nearly break the Iranian economy. Workers must demand the lifting of all sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran, along with the immediate cessation of any assassinations and war provocations by the West.

Despite the laudable victories of the IRGC as part of the Shia Resistance bloc (Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Yemeni Houthis), Anglo/US/NATO imperialism ultimately cannot be defeated militarily. It will take an international socialist struggle against COVID-19 lies, “the Great Reset” and its accompanying imperialist wars of conquest. The forging of Marxist vanguard parties based on Permanent Revolution throughout the Middle East and internationally remain key to the first steps towards undermining the destructive power of the international system of private profit for private gain. NO WAR ON IRAN!

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

 

[1] https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/iran-announces-assassination-of-top-nuclear-scientist/ (28-11-2020)

[2] https://theredelephants.com/there-is-undeniable-mathematical-evidence-the-election-is-being-stolen/ (28-11-2020)

[3] https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2020/11/28/iran-nuclear-scientist-assassination/ (28-11-2020)

[4] https://www.axios.com/mohsen-fahrizade-iran-nuclear-assassinated-tehran-b1765dd7-ab7b-4e54-ac95-29fc082dcef2.html (28-11-2020)

[5] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-26/kylie-moore-gilbert-released-from-iran-prison-in-swap-deal/12921768 (28-11-2020)

[6] https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/dr-kylie-moore-gilbert-has-been-released-from-iranian-prison-after-804-days/ (28-11-2020)

[7] https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/443546/Australian-woman-violated-national-security-Iran (28-11-2020)

[8] https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/kylie-moore-gilbert-detained-by-iran-over-baseless-israeli-spy-claims-20201126-p56i7f.html (28-11-2020)

[9] https://jonsnewplace.wordpress.com/2020/06/10/who-says-covid-19-social-distancing-lockdowns-vaccines-now-unnecessary/ (29-11-2020)

[10] https://financialtribune.com/articles/national/106143/iran-gov-t-orders-full-lockdown-in-150-cities-to-curb-covid-19 (29-11-2020)